


The infinite of sky

by HerotheHardWay



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora does not know how to not be a soldier, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Catra tries her best to help, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Light Angst, Post-Canon, it's really soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27708452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerotheHardWay/pseuds/HerotheHardWay
Summary: Adora can’t sleep at night. She was willing to give up everything, her life even, to save everything, everyone she loved. She knows how to do that—how to sacrifice. How to die, even. What she doesn’t know is how to live, after, and feel that she can ever deserve a happy ending.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 261





	The infinite of sky

Sometimes, Adora lies awake at night and wonders what she could possibly have done to deserve this.

_ This _ being, well, everything. Her place at Brightmoon, physically. Surrounded by her best friends. Catra, warm and asleep and curled against her like a space heater.

Catra especially.

Logically, she knows what she did. She saved the world, she and Catra did.

Well, really though, Catra did. Adora failed.

So Adora lies awake at night and wonders what she ever did to deserve this. This being everything she’s ever wanted, everything she never let herself want. How does she deserve this when she couldn’t even do the one thing she knows how to? 

She knows how to give, and how to make sacrifices, and that’s it really.

She shattered her sword, broke  _ herself _ , to save Etheria and the millions of planets in this vast universe from the wrath of an ancient, long-dead people. She shattered her sword, and lost She-Ra, and sure it was temporary. But she’d been  _ happy _ to do it. And those last few days of the war...she knew what she was for. She had a purpose, and that purpose was to create a future where everyone she loved would be safe...even if that future didn’t include her. Adora has only ever wanted to save the world. And then, as her mind had filled up with bright green, as poison licked its way through her arteries, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to finish it. She hadn’t been strong enough, fast enough, good enough to activate the failsafe properly. She couldn’t save everyone, couldn’t save  _ anyone _ .

But then there was Catra.

Catra saved her. By reaching out her hand, Catra saved the whole damn universe. And Adora is grateful in a kind of bone-deep, irrevocable way. She owes a debt to Catra that she can never finish repaying. 

Most Etherians thinks she’s the one who saved them all; only a handful of people know what happened in the Heart. Bow and Glimmer do, of course. Only  _ they _ know that when it came time to stick her courage to a sticking place, she wasn’t strong enough to do it. Willing, but unable. And that sense of determination and helplessness and despair is still stuck in her mind, even after all this time. Sometimes she’s able to push it down, ignore it for a while. But then she’s asked to come help some villagers in one of the other kingdoms, asked to come as  _ She-Ra _ , of course. And invariably there is at least one person who rushes up to her to thank her tearfully for saving them from Horde Prime, and every time it makes her feel like the absolute worst kind of imposter.

Which is why she’s awake hours after she and Catra settle down to sleep.

They both have scars from the war, visible and invisible. And Catra may have nightmares, but Adora has insomnia.

She turns from back onto her stomach for what feels like the hundredth time tonight. She does it as slowly and lightly as possible, because she doesn’t want to wake Catra. It’s been a year, and somehow she knows the rhythm of Catra’s sleep better than she ever did when they were kids.

And she tries again to sleep, but she just ends up staring bleary-eyed at the far wall of their room.

Finally giving up on falling sleep, Adora carefully sits up and glances back at Catra, who is softly illuminated by the starlight coming in from their big bay windows. She’s the most beautiful thing Adora has ever seen,  _ will _ ever see. Her whole damn world, in the shape of a girl.

Catra makes her feel important, makes her feel valuable, makes her feel so many things. Adora just doesn’t know how to feel like that without also knowing deep down that she doesn’t deserve any of it.

She hunches forward until her forehead rests on her knees, and wraps her arms around her legs. Catra unconsciously moves into the warm spot she vacated in her sleep, and Adora’s heart swells at that small movement.

She loves Catra. She loves her more than life, more than reason, more than hope. She loves her desperately, fervently,  _ intrinsically,  _ like the air in her own lungs. She has no idea what she did to deserve Catra, and so there is always this voice in her head that tells her that she  _ doesn’t _ . Maybe she doesn’t deserve her, and one day Catra will realize how imperfect Adora is, and then—

The air feels thin in her lungs, and there are iron bands around her ribs, and sitting here in the dark with Catra lying pressed against her thigh is taking up every bit of space inside her and leaving none for her to breath. So she slips out from under the coverlet and stands up.

Adora gently lifts the blanket to cover Catra’s shoulder. She doesn’t want her to get cold.

Her bare feet make small sounds against the cool stone floor as she goes to the dresser and unhooks a robe from its hook. It’s a deep, midnight blue. A gift from Casta that for once isn’t knitted or covered in creative bobbles. Instead, it’s smooth and silky against her skin. It’s warm enough for Brightmoon’s cool summer evenings, but as light as a feather, and the indigo is woven through with silver thread in a pattern that only shows when the light hits it just so. 

Adora moves through the castle like a wraith, feet following a familiar path. She’s a little out of breath by the time she gets to the top of the tower. 

Up here, the land around Brightmoon is laid out like a patchwork diorama of forest and water and rocky outcroppings. The Whispering Woods are a dark mass of trees, and the moonstone shimmers with its perennial pearlescent glow.

But the real beauty, the reason Adora comes to the tallest tower at Brightmoon when she can’t sleep, are the stars. The splendor of them takes her breath away, even after months of seeing a sky full of them. Tonight is a rare occasion: no moons light the skies. And the still air creates a mirror-calm reflection of that sky in the waters that surround the castle.

Adora could stay up here forever.

She wishes she  _ could _ stay up here forever.

She nestles her body into a familiar nook, and closes her eyes for a moment. Up here, she can breathe a little easier, even as her soul longs to return her to Catra’s side where she belongs.

This neverending push and pull isn’t sustainable. But she doesn’t know how to make it stop. She and Catra are bound together, they’ve bound  _ themselves _ together in a way that happenstance never could when they were kids. They’ve chosen each other, and their lives are interwoven in a way that makes Adora feel complete and whole. She’s never been as happy as she has been for the past year. 

And still, night after night, she can’t sleep. She knows how to give until there is nothing left of her. It is ingrained in her being so deeply that even when the world was ending, it took a declaration of love from the girl she’d loved since before she knew what love was, to take something for herself for once. Catra’s love saved her, literally. Catra’s love saved her and let her save everyone else. 

She’s never known how to hold any of herself back. She will do anything for the people she loves, except maybe look head-on at her feelings about them. She tried so hard for so long to keep them compartmentalized, only ever saw them sideways, in the corners of her heart. She always knew that if she let herself open that box...she would never be able to close it again. And here they are, and when Adora finally forced herself to confront her emotions she found Catra already nestled in her heart. And now even if she could close that box, Catra would still be  _ inside _ it. Her weakness has always and will always be Catra. 

Adora  _ wants _ Catra, in every sense of the word. And that wanting is also tangled up with her eternal attempt  _ not _ to want more than she’s supposed to, not to think about what she wants, not to  _ let _ herself. Every time she starts to think about it she fears that these two parts of her are irreconcilable. The part of her that has always wanted Catra to be hers, and the part that never let her think about how badly she wanted it, because she wasn’t made for that. She wasn’t made for having, only giving. And she  _ was  _ made, her character shaped since the very beginning to mold her into the perfect soldier. Shadow Weaver took her natural desire to please and fit it to her own ends.

Shadow Weaver is the looming specter she can never purge from herself, it seems. And she hates that even in death, the sorcerer still has this power over her. The power to twist her thoughts and dreams and desires into unnatural beasts in her eyes that tear her apart in the night.

She’s been told her whole life to ignore what she wants. First by Shadow Weaver, who constantly told her that her friendship with Catra was a distraction, that it got in the way of her advancement, that the only thing that mattered was being the best soldier she could be. Then by Light Hope, who convinced her to abandon her friends for the greater good, and even manipulated Catra into severing their bond because it meant Adora would do what needed to be done. She escaped one and ran straight into the net of the other, and then found herself lost out at sea when, after she first broke the sword and then disabled the Heart, she realized that what they’d both instilled in her was still  _ there _ , even after they no longer had power over her.

So yes. Now she has everything she wanted, and she is incandescently happy, and she constantly feels like she’s  _ doing  _ it wrong _ , it  _ being her own life. She’s so happy she feels gutted with it, she feels like her insides are exposed so she could touch them. She’s so happy it’s frightening. Catra knows the soft underbelly of her, she always has, and somehow she still wants Adora. 

Adora stares, not at the sky, but at the perfect reflection of it in the lake around Brightmoon. A fish makes a splash, and the tiny concentric ripples momentarily disturb the image, making the stars flicker before steadying as the rings make their way outward.

Her fingers find a pebble wedged between flagstones, and she worries it out until she holds it in her palm. She squeezes it tightly, and then throws it as hard as she can outward.

The pebble makes a long arc through the night before it hits the surface of the lake with a bigger splash, disrupting the reflection in a bigger way. Adora feels a spike of melancholy satisfaction that she’s ruined it.

She watches the ripples from her pebble until they disappear to the edges of the lake.

The night is quiet.

“How long have you been up here?” Catra asks quietly from behind her, and Adora turns to see her standing at the doorway out onto the small, circular top of the tower. She’s holding a bundle to her chest, and wearing only the shorts and loose tank top she normally sleeps in.

Adora’s shoulders sag, and she looks out at the sea of stars. They’ve moved since she’s been here; new constellations are on the horizon now. She says, voice crackly from disuse, “An hour? I think...”

Catra goes to stand behind Adora and unfurls a thick blanket, and hands one corner to Adora. Adora gratefully tucks it around her shoulders and leans back against Catra’s legs.

After a minute, Catra asks, “Couldn’t sleep?”

Adora tilts her head back to rest on Catra’s thighs and looks up at the stars. “I tried...”

Catra’s fingers gently comb out the remnants of her hair poof, smoothing away the semi-permanent indent in her hair, and Adora closes her eyes at the feel of it. The soothing feel of Catra’s grooming is comforting. The iron bands around her ribcage loosen a little.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Catra asks, minutes later, when she’s worked her way through Adora’s hair until it’s silky smooth.

Adora turns her head to the side and presses harder into Catra’s leg. She doesn’t want to exhale because if she does, she might cry. It suddenly washes over her all at once, the reason she can’t sleep tonight. She mumbles, “I don’t deserve you.”

What she means is that Catra makes her feel special and important and that she’s done nothing to warrant it. That she’s grateful that Catra is always there for her when she’s a mess, even though she doesn’t have to be, even though Adora would never dream of asking her.

She never feels like Catra is getting a very good deal when it comes to her. She has to put up with Adora’s intensity and her anxiety and her obnoxious talking horse companion. Catra always  _ seems _ to be happy to be with her but Adora just can’t seem to pull off the magic trick to convince herself, convince her gut, her heart, that Catra knows how messed up she is inside and still wants her. 

Catra lets out a little  _ hah  _ and her fingers still in Adora’s hair _.  _ “Why not?”

Adora’s shoulders sag. “Because—I just —”  _ Because I don’t know how to do this. Because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now, and I’m more lost than I’ve ever been. Because we have this happy ending and I’m happy, I really really am, so why do I still feel like I’m living in a dream I’m not allowed to want?  _ She squeezes her eyes tighter, and her voice is only a hair above a whisper when she says, “Do you ever wish I was more?”

Catra’s fingers slide out of her hair, and she mourns their loss for a moment before Catra settles herself beside Adora, swinging her legs over the edge to dangle against the stone of the tower. When Adora glances over at her, Catra is looking back, and her eyes are so soft and full of love that Adora has to blink very hard not to break down right here. Catra glances down at Adora’s hand and takes it. She gives Adora a squeeze. She says firmly, “No. I don’t.”

Adora is startled by the certainty in Catra’s voice. She says quietly, “But...what do I even...what is there to  _ like _ —”

Catra lets out a long exhale. “So many things. Do you want to hear them all?”

Adora knows she will list them, she has before. She blinks rapidly, eyelashes damp, and squeezes Catra’s hand. “I just—I want to be enough for you.”  _ I don’t want to be too much for you.  _ “You deserve someone who has it together.”  _ You saved my life in every way that matters.  _ Her voice breaks, “I  _ love _ you.”  _ I love you. I love you. I love you. _

Catra looks at her with a fond smile on her lips, but her eyes...there is something almost sad in her eyes. “You  _ are _ enough for me.”

Adora wants to ask about it, that minor note, but instead she plunges ahead because she wants Catra to  _ understand _ . She stares down at their interlocked hands in her lap. “I just feel—Catra, I don’t know who I  _ am _ anymore. I know She-Ra...she’s not just a warrior. She’s supposed to be a peacekeeper too, and I  _ want  _ to do that, I really do...but I don’t know how. I’m only good at one thing and I couldn’t even do  _ that  _ right and now—”

Adora clenches her teeth and stares very hard at the distant shadow of a tree that looks a little like Swiftwind. She blinks very fast. “Why is it that now, after it’s all over, I feel more of a mess than I ever did during the war? Why can’t I get it—keep it together, why can’t I  _ sleep _ —” Her voice wavers, and she stops, unable to go on without breaking down. She hates how fragile she is. She feels the exhaustion of a week of bad nights catching up with her, challenging her to keep it together for just a little longer, only it never seems to  _ end  _ and there’s always another week after this one.

Catra turns towards her and gently takes hold of Adora’s shoulder and tugs, and Adora collapses into her chest, and the next exhale turns into a jagged sob, and then another and now she can’t stop herself.

Catra’s other hand is on her back, slowly rubbing it, and her embrace is firm and solid and it feels like the only thing preventing Adora from flying apart, and Adora is crying like the world is ending, only it already did almost end, and Catra saved her, Catra was the only one who  _ saw _ her and saw what she was going to do and decided she wouldn’t let that happen, wouldn’t let Adora give her life in exchange for the world’s, and Catra loves her, just  _ her _ , Adora, and she’s soaked through Catra’s tank top and her nose is stuffy now, and she gradually becomes aware that Catra is purring, the deep rumble in her chest soothing in a way that Adora had never realized she associates with  _ home  _ as she drips tears and snot all over Catra’s shirt.

“ _ How can you want me when I’m— like this?” _ She whispers brokenly, fragily. 

“Shhh,” Catra murmurs, “It’s okay, it’s okay I’ve got you,” and rocks Adora ever so slightly side to side.

Adora sniffs, and takes a deep, shuddery breath that turns into a tearing sob on the exhale, but Catra just hugs her a little tighter for a moment and says encouragingly, “Good job, try again,” and so she does and it goes a little better this time.

She continues to breathe, in and out, shakily but a little more steadily, and prevents them from turning into stilted, juddering inhales most of the time now, and Catra’s hand goes to the base of her neck, and it grounds her.

Catra reaches across and tucks a lock of Adora’s hair behind her ear. “Remember when we realized I couldn’t take baths without having flashbacks, and you designed and built a shower from scratch for our room?”

Adora clenches her eyes shut tightly and tries not to start crying again, and nods after a second.

Catra continues, “And remember how much I was freaking out about going to the first council meeting after we defeated Horde Prime, and you talked me through it and reminded me that they didn’t hate me anymore?”

Adora presses her lips together, eyes closed, and nods again.

“Adora,” Catra says softly, “There are  _ so _ many ways you work to make me feel safe and loved and happy. Let me do that for you, okay? We’re a team, right? And that means you look out for me,  _ and I look out for you _ . Remember?”

Adora does remember. She remembers what feels like a lifetime ago when she’d first said those words to Catra. Her voice is small when she asks, “But—you’ve—everyone has been through so much. I just don’t want to make it any harder. I should have it together. I should be  _ stronger. _ ”

Catra takes a minute to respond. Then she says quietly, “I don’t think anyone has it together anymore. And...it’s okay to lean on other people. It’s okay to lean on me. I  _ want _ you to, okay? I want to hold your weight like you do for me.” Catra pauses for a moment, then adds, “It took me a long time to accept that I could do that. But that doesn’t make it less true for you.”

Adora sniffs waterily, “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, you know that right?”

Catra lets out a long exhale, and presses a kiss to Adora’s hair and doesn’t draw away. She mumbles, even more quietly than before, “It’s hard for me to believe it. I’ve done...I did a lot of stuff. But,” she says waveringly, “I do know.”

“You saved me. You saved  _ everyone.  _ I couldn’t—when you reached for me—I would’ve failed,” Adora sniffs, and scrubs the tears out of her eyes frustratedly.

Catra shifts, and holds Adora tighter to her chest. “Hey.  _ You _ chose to reach back. It wasn’t just me, it was  _ us.  _ I didn’t save Etheria, I  _ never _ had that power on my own, and maybe you didn’t save the world single handedly. But Adora, it’s  _ okay _ . It’s okay to need other people. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure. You don’t have to do something alone to succeed at it.”

Adora is quiet, turning Catra’s words over in her mind. Catra’s arm around her shoulders is a comforting pressure, preventing her train of thought from skittering off into oblivion. 

After a long time, she whispers, “I don’t know how to—how to believe that it’s okay for  _ me  _ though? How do I—I don’t know how to make myself believe it.” She inhales slowly and lets it out, and two more tears make tracks down her cheeks to drip off her chin and onto Catra’s tank top. “I can think it’s true and it still doesn’t  _ feel _ …” she trails off, “It doesn’t feel like it should apply to me. Like I’m not worth that.” 

Catra sits up on her knees and takes Adora by the shoulders. “First of all, you’re  _ not  _ a failure, okay? And don’t you deserve, I dunno, grace, too? Not because you saved the world or because you didn’t.” She takes a deep breath, “If I deserve that, you do too.”

Adora hears the thought behind Catra’s words. She’s been there when Catra refused to leave their room, shoulders bowed with her past, unable to bear other people’s eyes on her. She’s been there for every nightmare where Adora never came back for her, and she woke up screaming and gasping for air. Every comment, spoken offhand but loaded with weight, that she would have gotten what she deserved. She  _ knows _ , intimately, how much Catra has struggled and worked to come to the place she is now.

“Why do I feel like one though?” Adora asks in a small voice.

Catra is quiet, and then she exhales slowly. “There’s more than just...succeeding and failing. It’s not black and white like that. Not being able to do it on your own and needing help, and  _ then  _ succeeding, that’s still a success. Needing other people doesn’t mean you’ve failed, Adora. It just means you need other people.”

Adora presses her forehead into Catra’s shoulder, eyes closed. She remembers what feels like a lifetime ago, when she’d looked at her reflection in this same lake in front of Brightmoon and realized she couldn’t hold off the Horde by herself. When the other princesses had come to her aid, in that moment it hadn’t felt like failing. The doubt only comes after.

After a minute, she nods. 

After another minute, she clears her throat and says, “Okay. Okay. Yeah.” She squeezes Catra’s hand again.

She sniffs. “I, uh, I think it’s gonna take a while. To feel it. But...thank you. It—it helps.”

Catra squeezes back, and says softly into her hair, “ All I’ve  _ ever _ wanted was you, Adora. Just you. Not a rank, not a title, not power, not even a superhero for a girlfriend. Just you, just like this.”

Adora lets out a shaky laugh. “I don’t know why…”

“Hey. I love  _ you _ , my best friend, my partner.” Catra lifts their interwoven hands up to her mouth and kisses Adora’s knuckles. “You’re forgetting that I  _ know _ you. I’m not going to suddenly realize that you have flaws or something and leave. I don’t love you in spite of them. They’re just...part of you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Adora mumbles. Her heart feels close to bursting.

“Neither of us are perfect,” Catra says, and snorts, “Hell, far from it. But we have the rest of our lives ahead of us, and the only thing I know for sure is that...I want to do it with you.”

“Me too,” Adora whispers. 

Catra tightens her arms around her, and Adora relaxes into it. She is suddenly exhausted. The sleepiness that had eluded her earlier is making a reappearance now, and she nuzzles into Catra further. “M’ tired,” she mumbles.

“Want to go back to bed?” Catra murmurs.

Adora nods, too drained to speak unless necessary.

Catra gently releases her, and gets to her feet. She holds out a hand to Adora, and Adora scoots back from the parapet and takes it, clumsily getting to her feet. Her back is stiff, and she’s much colder than she realized. Catra scoops up the blanket and tucks it under one arm, never letting her other hand release Adora’s.

“Come to sleep,” Catra says softly, and tugs her to the door.

Adora casts one last look at the sky full of stars behind her. They’re bright, and beautiful, and achingly far away. She has found comfort in their distance, sometimes. But Catra is right here, warm and looking at Adora with love in her eyes, and Adora’s heart goes with her, like it always has. And so she turns away from the stars, and follows Catra inside.

It is late, and the horizon shows the first blush of dawn. The sun will not rise for hours, but it will rise, as it has done for more than a year. But Catra and Adora will sleep long after the sunlight creeps into their bedroom. 

**Author's Note:**

> Angsty and Soft because I am soft and Adora is angsty and I can't stop thinking about how Adora just keeps on having that damn hero complex right until the very last moment of the show and narratively it's deconstructed but Adora herself never really gets that :') Anyway as usual I'm having emotions about Adora what's new?  
> Also I did a doodle of [Adora on that parapet](https://herothehardway.tumblr.com/post/629808604735782912/drew-an-adora-to-go-with-a-fic-ive-been-working) :)
> 
> Comment/Kudo if you enjoyed :D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Infinite of Sky [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27800248) by [caminante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caminante/pseuds/caminante)




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